DC Arc Flash Measurements From a 1000 V Valve Regulated Lead Acid Battery System

Abstract

As the Navy moves forward with implementing electrochemical energy sources in their power systems, a need to understand the hazards present to electric workers comes to light. Understanding the effects these sources have on arc flash hazards drives the need to study relevant energy sources that are deployed on naval platforms. A 1000-V valve regulated lead acid (VRLA) battery system presents the greatest need to study as incident energy models can suggest dramatic personal protective equipment (PPE) especially with the inclusion of scale factors. As a part of a collaborative effort between the Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI) and the University of Texas at Arlington (UTA) arc flash studies of VRLA battery systems at voltages as high as 936 V have been performed. Findings show that below 800 V, the battery sourced incident energy as high as 0.26 cal/cm2. Above 800 V, incident energy surpassed 1.2 cal/cm2 and approached category 1 PPE (4 cal/cm2). A model derived from this work is used to emphasize the impact enclosure based scale factors have on incident energy estimates. This work has also compared relevant dc incident energy models to the measured incident energy sourced from this battery system.

Keywords

• Arc flash
• electrochemical energy storage
• incident energy
• lead acid batteries
• personal protective equipment (PPE)